I’ve seen quite a bit of this:

in some circles there are voices who claim that at its core Occupy is not nonviolent and that the fringe is not a fringe at all but the real face of the movement.

I found this to be a rather ironic twist:

The only thing resembling violence that we saw was the annoying disruption caused by a loud, obnoxious street preacher with a bullhorn who made a constant stream of noise.

With so many conservative evangelicals seeking to associate anything they can find and/or characterize as “typical OWS behavior”,  this is one that turns the question back at them.  Is this person “typical of evangelicals”?

Unsurprsingly,  these people have not been to an ACTUAL occupy camp,  but merely echo the distortions being thrown at them by the right wing and “uninformed” media.  Too those who do such things even after being at a camp,  they know their own strategy.  “LOOK FOR” things that can be used to discredit the movement,  such as capturing any acts of aggression anywhere near the camps.

I notice people heavily involved in Tea Party and Religious Right doing this “howl”  under every online post about Occupy onchurch related sites:

 To howl, “Communism!” at every idea or effort to deal with gross inequality is both ridiculous and counter-productive.

The favorites of the Occupy-detractors/condemners is “Marxist” and “Socilaist”, in addition to shiftless, lazy bums,  unemployed,  and “smelly”.  Such “gated community” smugness makes my skin crawl.  To think that so many of the “victims” of Christian Right thinking have been duped into siding with the 1% who are sticking it to them (with so many of these folks right in those economic sectors that are sliding so quickly into poverty,  and being told it is the “evil liberals” who are doing this,  and to “question America” is sin rather than an innate attribute of a healthy democracy,  or even the unmentionable revolutionary character of the Kingdom of God.  That the Kingdom of God has become status quo for them seems like such an insidious theological heresy.

Red Letter Christians » A Visit To Occupy Washington D.C.: Some Thoughts on Violence and Nonviolence